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Tuesday, 24 September 2013

Cauliflower and Stilton Soup

Inspired by Claudie

I really love September. It is a time for renewal, and new
intentions.

Rosh Hashanna (Jewish New Year) was a few weeks ago, and for
the past three years I have celebrated, and participated with an incredible
community called Grassroots Jews. Grassroots Jews is a temporary
community that comes together for the High Holy days (Jewish New Year and the
Day of Atonement) to create an inclusive spiritual environment, focused around
the ideals of inclusivity, participation and co-creation. Observing the days
with the Grassroots community has also been the first time I have ever felt any
real spiritual connection to this incredibly significant part of the Jewish
year.

At Rosh Hashanna I always make some resolutions. They are
more ‘intentions’ than ‘resolutions’, and I use them to give a bit of purpose
to the year ahead – as opposed to the traditional sort of resolution that seems
to exist only to be broken. For example, three years ago I set the intention of
having more adventures and putting my creativity into the world – and that is
how this blog was born.

Every year some of my intentions are profound, and some are
more prosaic. This Rosh Hashanna my intentions included ‘keeping things simple’
and ‘eat more cauliflower’.

This soup is, obviously, born of both of those intentions.
It is amazing how you can take so few ingredients and create something with
such depth of flavour. It is rich and creamy; perfect comfort food for when the
weather starts to get miserable. A bowl would probably be in a meal in itself,
so serve small portions if you want to eat more food as well.

Serves 6-8 with a bit left over

1 large cauliflower, finely slice the stalk and separate the
top into florets

1 large potato, diced (you don’t need to bother peeling it)

1 large onion, diced

1 tbsp olive or rapeseed oil

1 vegetable or chicken stock cube dissolved in 1 litre of
hot water

Approx 75g blue Stilton, cut into little lumps (more or less
according to your taste)

Salt and pepper

Heat the oil in a large saucepan, and fry the onion until
lightly browned. Add the diced potato, and fry for another 5 minutes or so
until the onions are a little more caramelised and the potatoes have taken on a
little colour too.

Add the sliced cauliflower stalks, stock, and a big pinch of
salt, and bring to the boil and let it bubble for about 10 minutes.

Add the rest of the cauliflower, put a lid on the saucepan
and bring it to a simmer – you can add another 250ml of hot water if you want
the soup a little thinner – but don’t add much more than that.

Simmer the soup for about 15 minutes from when the
cauliflower florets go in. When it is ready and the veggies are soft, blitz
with an immersion blender. Add the Stilton, and blitz a little more. The soup
should be really thick and creamy so make an effort to blitz out all the lumps.
The cheese is salty so don’t add any more salt until it has been blended in –
but make sure you taste and season once it has.